A WORLD Health Organization (WHO) representative in Gaza has described harrowing scenes amid efforts to supply hospitals, many decimated or fully destroyed by Israel’s genocidal war, with essential medical and humanitarian supplies.
“When we were in Gaza City two days back to al-Ahli Hospital bringing in the most needed trauma supplies – IV fluids, saline, IV antibiotics, also some lab equipment and food for patients and staff etc – bombardments were all over the place where we were,” Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, told a media briefing on Wednesday.
“We saw a constant stream of trauma patients, horrific trauma patients, young girls with severe burn wounds, boys gasping,” he added.
“Currently in Gaza, everywhere I go, and I’ve been in Gaza City just a couple of days ago, and here in the south and everywhere, people live between anxiety and hope,” he said, referring to the ongoing talks in Egypt to broker an end to the fighting.
Just 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functioning and only a third of 176 primary care facilities work, Hanan Balkhy, WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, which oversees Gaza, said.
Speaking at a media briefing, Balkhy said Gaza has been struggling with “dire shortages” of electricity, clean water, medicine, broken equipment and damaged infrastructure in those health facilities still working.
“Some facilities have been hit and rehabilitated and hit once more,” she added.
Balkhy also said that seven in 10 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza were facing acute malnutrition, and one in five babies were being born either underweight or premature.
Meanwhile, James Elder, a UNICEF spokesperson currently in Gaza, has posted a video in which he said the UN children’s agency has been denied access by the Israeli army to northern Gaza to retrieve incubators for newborns on four occasions.
At least eight Palestinians have been killed and 61 others injured in new Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hour reporting period, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.
Two bodies have also been recovered from the rubble of the previous Israeli attacks in the same time frame, the ministry added.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a total of 67,183 Palestinians and injured 169,841 others since October 7, 2023, the statement published on Telegram said.
The killings continue despite the ceasefire talks that have been under way in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh for the past three days. Hamas and Israel are talking indirectly, with Qatar, Egypt and the United States serving as mediators.